This invention relates to swabs used by physicians and the like for collecting a culture from a particular area of a patient's body and for keeping the culture alive for a period of time after it has been collected. Such swabs customarily include an absorbent swabbing tip carried on the end of an elongated stem. The culture is collected by holding the stem and by swabbing a particular body area with the absorbent tip.
Many culture collecting swabs are packaged with a transport container having its own supply of culture-sustaining media. After the culture has been collected, the swab is placed into the container with the swabbing tip in contact with the media so as to keep the culture alive until it is transported to a laboratory for testing.
One of the most commercially successful culture collecting and transporting units is disclosed in Avery et al U.S. Pat. No. 3,450,129. Such a unit includes a flexible outer tube within which is contained a frangible glass ampoule having a liquid culture-sustaining media sealed therein. After the culture has been collected by a swab, the latter is placed in the tube and the tube then is squeezed to break the ampoule and release the liquid. The liquid moistens an absorbent plug which is disposed within the tube in engagement with the tip of the swab so as to keep the tip moist until the culture is transported and tested. A cap is placed over the tube to keep the inside of the tube in a substantially sterile condition during transport.
The stem of the swab disclosed in the Avery et al patent is relatively stiff and rigid and is of relatively large diameter. As a result, the swab is not capable of being used to collect cultures from curved and narrow body passages such as nasal passages or the genitourinary tract.
A swab which is capable of entering curved and narrow body passages is marketed under the trademark CALGISWAB by Inolex Corporation of Glenwood, Illinois. The tip of such a swab is carried on a stem which is in the form of a flexible wire having a relatively small diameter. As a result, the stem may be threaded into and will conform with a curved and narrow body passage to permit the swabbing tip to collect a culture from such passage.